Category Archives: Thursday Thirteen

Okay, so I’m not being very inventive today. I blame NaNoWriMo for sucking my mind dry. Here we go. 13 of my favorite morning things.

1) Coffee. Yes, the nectar of the gods for a caffeine junkie like me. Love the stuff, my heart would probably stop if I didn’t have my daily dose.

2) Empty House. I’m not enjoying this one today, but I wish I was. When the house is quiet and empty and it isn’t quite dawn I can sometimes get some major word counts in and my mind seems to work better for writing.

3) Lovable canines. My dogs are huge babies. What’s better than waking up and getting licked in the face and a fuzzy in greeting by your favorite fur balls?

4) A Hot Bath. I love hot baths. Nothing makes you melt quite like a steaming bath and the scent of lavender bubble bath.

5) Peace and Quiet. I hate being bugged first thing in the morning. I don’t like to deal with anything but my imaginary worlds before 8am.

6) When A Plan Comes Together. I like to write in the mornings, so, when I wake up and I have the perfect plan (usually a devious one) for my characters, it just makes my day.

8 ) Lovable Children. I have older kids so when I get a hug or an “I love you”, it’s the best thing ever.

9) Hot Water. Yep, you heard me right. Have you ever tried to boil water for a bath because your stupid hot water heater has gone out for the THIRD time in two years? The assholes don’t even want to give me a new one. I’m so pissed about it. *sigh*

10) Morning Chat with the Divas. Gotta love it. The Divas are a sure way to put a smile on my face no matter how bad of a morning I’ve had. ((Hugs)).

11) My Fluffy Robe. I hate being cold. Creation only knows why I moved up north. My robe keeps me nice and toasty in the mornings.

12) A Good Joke. I have a friend that sends me morning jokes sometimes, or funny videos she’s found. Gotta love a laugh before 8am.

13) More Coffee. I might have said this once before, but it bears repeating. Coffee, coffee, coffee. *sips* ahhhh. 😉

Happy Thursday 13 Everyone!

I have a thing about steampunk. I love the look of it, the awesome and classic feel of it all. So for your viewing enjoyment, I give you 13 amazing steampunk treasures. I found these while browsing Google and had to share these awesome finds.

1) A steampunk mouse. Yes, an actual working mouse. Simply Beautiful. I wish I knew someone who could fashion me something like this.

Hello, everyone, and happy T13. Thursday snuck up on me so I’m a little late today. But here are the 13 reasons I enjoy writing.

1) Inventing a new world for my characters is one of my greatest thrills. World building from the ground up by considering cause and effect can have me playing around with ideas for hours.

2) The exploration of human nature. Creating a character and then predicting how he or she might react under stress hits my, Muhahaha, button. I do so enjoy messing with my characters.

3) The very idea that my words can create images, emotions and bring to life entire worlds, makes me grin.

4) If I’m angry at someone, I can safely kill them off in my work and go on with my day with a satisfied smile on my face.

5) To prove to myself I am actually capable of doing something so complicated and difficult without giving up.

6) To prove to others I can do it.

7) Breathing life into characters and giving them a soul. Making them come alive on the page gives me great pleasure.

8 ) Playing devil’s advocate. I enjoy twisting things around and exploring both sides of a given subject.

9) To make myself cry. I enjoy being so emotionally invested in my characters that I actually cry when I kill them off. I figure if I’m that invested, maybe I can get that on paper and invoke emotions in others too.

10) Because I enjoy making my character suffer. Yeah, I’m mean, but I like it. LOL.

11) I haven’t yet read a book like mine and I think others would enjoy the stories I have to tell.

12) Research! I love research. I love learning new things and finding ways to apply it to my stories.

13) Last but not least…. Writing gets me excited about things. The thrill when something starts going just right, and all the pieces start falling into place in my wip. I get that bouncy feeling and can’t stop grinning.

Since I forgot about this until… uh, now, I’m rushing to put this together. So, I thought I’d share my favorite Halloween decorations with you.

1) Demon Baby one of my favorites in my collection of Halloween stuff. I would show you a real picture, but my camera seems to be dead and I’m running out of time to post this week’s 13. We call him, Baby Dread and he has veins of blue and red unlike the pict on the left. He even came with his own bottle of blood. Cute, eh?

We picked him up a couple of years ago at Spencers. He’s one of my favorite Halloween decorations.

2) Stuffed Owl. I have this awesome stuffed owl. He looks real. The feathers are real and he’s sweet. I stick him inside this old clock I have that’s broken but has a glass bottom with one of those pendulums in the bottom. The pendulum’s lost but it makes a great place to stick my owl.

3) Werewolf Skull. DH happened to find this awesome little find last year. A werewolf skull. Very realistic looking, made of ceramic. It sits in the middle of my massive coffee table. We get a lot of complements on this one. My niece has twice tried to talk us into giving it to her.

I love her an everything, but HA! Keep your paws off my toys. LOL.

4) Hellraiser Puzzle Box. I spent a little money on it, but certain Halloween decorations I’ll spend a bit of cash on if I really like them. My Puzzle Box is one of them. I’m a huge Hellraiser fan, so we picked it up as a bit of a splurge a couple of years ago.

5) The Gargoyle. We have a gargoyle that looks an awful lot like this one here. Except the wings move on ours and it growls at people who pass by.

Hehe, I put this on the porch when I give out candy and it moves when kids come up to trick-or-treat. I scare more kids that way. Hey, what’s Halloween without a few scares and terrified screams?

6) Glowing Red Skull Fogger. It’s not one of those that you put outside, this is an indoor one that plugs in, glows red and smoke comes out of his eyes. We just picked him up last year after Halloween. That’s the way we get most of our Halloween gems. 25% off is the best time to buy the following years Halloween decorations.

7) Severed Heads. We have a growing collection of them. A brides heads, a cool scarecrow head, a severed head with a giant hook through it, a vampire head and an old witch head. We hang them in our pine tree outside every year and put a collection of tombstones beneath.

8 ) Blood and Skulls Fountain. I got this cool fountain several years ago for really cheap because it has a chip on the lip of the fountain. You can barely see it. $80 fountain for half the price.

It’s a mountain of skulls that ooze out water into a bowl of bones below. I tend to add a bit of food coloring so that we get that nice blood effect. Besides, the red shows up better against the off white bones.

9) Severed limbs. We have a nice collection of them. Arms and legs I put out and add a few of my giant rats and cobwebs. Hehe. I once did the entire living room up like a dungeon.

10) Spooky Portraits. There’s a fine balance between spooky and gaudy. I happen to think my SIL goes overboard. I am a true believe in quality over quantity. I happen to think that casual spookiness will disturb people far more than wall-to-wall coverings.

For this reason I really enjoy taking down my pictures and putting up these haunted pictures. I think these really do add a nice spook factor to any home.

11) Giant Spider. One year I built this mock terrarium out of one of our old 20 gal. fish tanks. I put my bigger-than-my-hand sized spider inside and added a severed limb covered part of it in artificial webbing. The effect was very nice. I might do that again this year.

12) Skull and Bones Chimes. Ahh, every year I pull down my metal chimes and put up my bones and skull chimes. They shake and make clinking noises when the motion detector goes off. I’ve scared more visitors that way since the chimes sit by my front door.

13) My Creations. I’ve made several things over the years, but I’m especially proud of the paper mache dummy torso. I built it with chicken wire and paper mache and took me about a month to complete. *sniff* The mice have attacked it though. We had it in the garage and well, let’s just say I wasn’t pleased this fall when I saw my dummy. If I had known earlier I would have fixed the damage, but it’s too late now. I threw some rags on him and he’ll be climbing out of the graves when we get the graveyard completed.

Thirteen Favorite Mini Stories and lines from my life. These are all true. I enjoy these memories, I’m pretty sure you will too.

1) “Mom, don’t ever get that toilet paper again,” DS said.

“Why,” I asked. “What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s like wiping your ass with a dryer sheet.”

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2) 4 year old DBro is playing ball for the first time with our dad. He hits the ball.

“Run home! Run home!” Dad says.

DBro begins to cry. “But Dad, I don’t wanna go home.”

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3) DSis, 10 years old is incredibly gullible. Big Sister decides to play a prank and covers her hands in Elmer’s glue. When the glue dries, Big Sister sits down at the desk in the room the both share and waits for unsuspecting DSis to appear. When she does, Big Sister begins to peel away her “skin”.

“Yes, we are. Mom doesn’t want to tell you, she say’s your too young. When you get to be my age, your skin will peel too, and soon, you’ll have scales. One of these days, maybe dad will fix the spaceship and we can go home.”

“You’re lying.”

“No, I’m not. You wanna help me with some of this skin, it’s really itchy.”

“I’m gonna ask mom.”

Big Sister shrugs. “Go ahead. I doubt she’ll tell you though. We have to keep it a secret from the neighbors and you have a big mouth.”

Big Sister: Well, it is summer. He melted before they could get a good look at him.

DSis: I hate you.

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5) Big Sister: You know, people like you really shouldn’t get high.

DSis: What do you mean, people like me?

Big Sister: *see above*

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6) DSis: You must think I’m as bad as your mother-in-law and will believe anything.

Big Sister: Oh no, Sis. I have much more respect for you than to ever compare you to my MIL. She’s ignorant, you’re just gullible.

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7) Yes, I can make fun of myself too.

A man come up holding a cane: Can you show me to bus 72?

Big Sister points: Sure, it’s just across the street. Right over there.

DSis whispers: He’s holding a cane.

Big Sister: So?

DSis: We’ll take you to the bus.

Big Sister: What? I thought we were meeting–

DSis: The CANE.

Big Sister takes a better look at the cane, white with a bright red stripe. Yes, even I have my dense moments.

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8 ) DSis: You know, some words just sound funny.

Big Sister: You think?

DSis: Think about it. Mop. Now that is a funny word. Who decided that mop should even be a word. Mop-mop-mop-mop-mop.

Big Sister: Seriously Sis, people like you should not get high.

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9) Rogue is our bird dog. She very much enjoys birds. My DD decides she want as cute blue parakeet. So we get it for her. One week later I hear a squeaking noise on the stairs and go to investigate.

Me: Wow, who bought the cute blue toy for Rogue.

DD: OMG! MOM, that’s my BIRD!

Oops, I guess a bird was a bad idea.

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10) DS: What are we having for dinner?

Me: Bambi.

DH: I thought we were having Thumper.

DS: Well, as long as it’s not Flower, I’m good with it.

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11) DH: Honey, you should really quit smoking. You could get cancer.

Absent-minded Me: Cancer doesn’t really run in my family.

DD: Don’t worry Dad, Mom will have Alzheimer’s waaay before she dies of cancer.

*sigh* She’s lucky I have a good sense of humor.

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12) My dad, Donald, is driving, blows a stop sign, and thumps a little car with the right-of-way.It’s not serious but the battery shifts and something in wrong with the hood so he can’t get under the hood. He calls my mom. She asks where he is. His accident happened on the corner of Donald and Bop street.

He never lived that one down.

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13) Baby Sister: I was born in Las Vegas?

Big Sister: Yep.

Baby Sister: What was it like?

Big Sister: I was only 13. Let me think…. Hmm, warm. Great weather if I recall. November’s the perfect time of year for Vegas. Dad took us to Circus-Circus while Mom had you.

Baby Sister stares at Dad: You never take me anywhere!

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Ahh, family, you gotta love them. I hope you enjoyed this week’s thirteen. If nothing else, you now see why I am so strange. With family like this, it was bound to happen.

5) Rum & Monkey – oh, you don’t want to go here. You’ll spend hours having fun with the amazing little tests and generators people have created, or you’ll find that you can make your own and it’s all over with.